Food and Memories

My belly is very very full

Caved in and ate a comfort meal from my childhood. Creamed Chip Beef on toast. or SOS as they know it in the military. Incredibly fattening but Ohhhh So Good. Foods from my childhood are always the best and there are very few that I have ere made as well as my mother but I am gaining on her as I grow older. I find I do many things better as I grow older. Things like laundry, I don't see that I do anything different than I did when I was 18 but they come out cleaner and fresher not sure why Maybe its just the magic of old age. Thanksgiving dinner is another thing that does better with practice. Food makes it to the table all at the same time properly cooked. When I was younger it seemed so overwhelming. Cooking so many dishes with one oven. This is the miracle of Microwaves and better planning.

When I was a child my mother used to make candied apples with me . Real ones with the homemade cook on the stove type candy. They were incredible. I know they still sell the stuff to make them but my teeth would probably not appreciate it. Some things are better when enjoyed young.

She also made a mean fried SPAM Sandwich. Haven't eaten SPAM in years due to unwillingness to deal with the scorn of my family. Yes I do know what's in it but it still tasted good.

Holidays were always good, she worked and there were times a child could feel ignored but mostly it was childhood selfishness. My mother made sure every holiday was remembered. An avid Hallmark customer There was always a little something for small holidays like valentines. A card , A stuffed animal, Candy hearts in their signature pink box. Christmas cookies were cut with hundreds of different shapes from the cutter collection she amassed. Trays full of goodies at holiday open houses. Champagne and wine flowing, Good cheer all around. I grew to disdain her holiday flamboyancy, I yearned for the simple, the quiet, the less than 100 of her closest friend, but I marvel at her talents. The ability to create a party and actually have people enjoy it. I can't do it I am too locked into my private world to ever let that many people in. For all her faults and excess she brought to my life many experiences great and small that were magic in my mind.

Brunches at the Biltmore Eating shrimp omelets with mimosas staring at the old weathered Gold Leaf Ceiling Imagining the fortunes it must contain. The eyes of a 7 year old eating in the splendor of a mythic castle.

Tea at the Ritz. Tea in a fancy hotel in Boston. The greatest present my mother ever gave me was a 4 day trip to Boston. She had a conference and a hotel room with two beds. Located in Downtown Boston she spent her days in meeting while I spent mine wandering around the city a young mother of two on her own in the big city with no one to answer to. I may have been 21-22 at the time. It was a freeing experience. I love History and I feel the ghosts of the future and the past. Boston is thick with both and it was like walking through a haze watching all of its incarnations pass before me. Nights and time off were spent Eating in incredible restaurants, Visiting sites and in general just being together. I love my mother when we are alone. But she is very different people just as I am. There is the person she is today and the person she is with them, I like best the person she is with me.